


These Manmade Cages

by myparadoxicalsoul



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:19:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8244181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myparadoxicalsoul/pseuds/myparadoxicalsoul
Summary: The Ark never ran out of air. Octavia never got caught. Clarke was released from the Skybox and reintegrated into society, a cadet under the instruction of Lieutenant Blake. Disclaimer: I do not own anything. These characters and settings belong to Kass Morgan and Jason Rothenberg/The 100 writers.





	1. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Comments are appreciated <3
> 
> The next chapter will be up as soon as possible.

The recoil of the gun trembles in her shoulders and Clarke’s ears ring despite the safety regulation earmuffs, but that does nothing to hinder the triumph that floods through her veins and breaks over her face in a wide grin. Firing a gun never fails to give her a rush, providing a hint of excitement and danger in the otherwise strictly maintained amity of the Ark. Not much can happen on a tin can in space. Especially when dissent equals execution. 

Clarke lowers her gun and tugs her headgear off as she sends a smug grin towards Lieutenant Blake, who leans against the far wall, arms crossed over his broad chest, with a blank expression. Indifferent and unimpressed. No two words could describe Bellamy Blake more accurately.

“Oh come on! That was perfect!” Clarke cocks her hip and gestures to the target with six bullet holes riddling the head and chest, her grin slipping into a scowl.

He raises an ink-black eyebrow. “Don’t expect praise for something that you’re expected to be able to do, Cadet Griffin.”

Clarke lets out a scoff and moves across the training room to replace the handgun and earmuffs. “Whatever,” she sighs, used to his attitude. He’s had it in for her since day one. “How long do I have to wait until I receive my results?” She turns to face him, leaning back against the cool metal table behind her.

“‘How long do I have to wait until I receive my results, _Lieutenant Blake._ ’” He pushes off the wall and takes a step towards her, deep brown eyes glaring into her periwinkle ones.

Clarke rolls her eyes and says nothing, refusing to stroke his ego, eyebrows lifting expectantly.

Blake’s jaw clenches and he closes the distance between them, stopping only inches away. His face is a hard mask, but Clarke can see the indignation burning in his eyes. “If you can’t learn to respect your superiors then you won’t make it far in this career path, no matter how good of a shot you are,” he growls. “You may be used to everyone bowing and scraping at your feet, Princess, but in here I have the authority. Understood?” His breath is hot against her face.

Clarke’s nostrils flare and she bites her tongue to keep from spitting a retort. Unsurprisingly, Bellamy Blake is the only superior Clarke doesn’t respect. This isn’t the first time he has thrown her status, or more accurately her mother’s, in her face. Usually, Clarke wouldn’t hesitate to challenge him, but the warning in his voice holds her at bay. Now is not the time and she refuses to let her mother take another thing from her. “Perfectly, Lieutenant Blake,” she grinds out between gritted teeth. _Fucking asshole._

He nods and steps back with a small, smug smirk. “Report to medical for evaluation tomorrow morning. Your final results will be submitted by the end of the week.”

“Yes, Sir,” she snaps and storms out of the room, metal of the floor clanging underneath her stomping feet. She keeps her head down, avoiding eye contact, as she stalks on autopilot towards the small one bedroom apartment she was assigned after her review. 

Despite the lack of windows and the cramped space, Clarke loves it. It’s a symbol of her fresh start, leaving behind the privilege her mother’s status awarded her – even though she knows that if it weren’t for her mother’s status she wouldn’t have it to begin with. Traitors aren’t usually reintegrated into society. 

The walls here are covered in drawings, just like her cell in lock up. It’s a reminder. A reminder of what she’s been through. A reminder of the promise she has made, to herself and to her father. 

Clarke unbuckles the watch around her wrist and runs her thumb over the smooth face, lips tugging town in a sad smile. Then she sets the watch down on her bedside table, strips off her Cadet uniform and curls up on her lumpy couch with her sketchpad, trying to remember the lines of her fathers face.

***

The next morning Clarke has her hair back in a severe bun – or an attempt at one, she can never keep all the blonde tendrils in place – and her shoulders back as she strides towards Medical. The route is so familiar that Clarke doesn’t even need to think about where she is going, allowing her to become lost in the anxiety stirring in the pit of her stomach. Clarke doesn’t even realise she’s arrived until she has already stepped through the doors and a familiar voice calls, “Clarke?”

Clarke’s head snaps up and her hands move to smooth down her uniform as she meets her mother’s gaze. “Mother.” She responds stiffly, her eyes shifting away to search for Jackson. She fights a scowl when she sees him with a stethoscope against the chest of an elderly man. 

“Is everything okay?” Abby asks, stepping towards Clarke, arms reaching out as if to pat her down and check for injury. 

Clarke takes an automatic step back, eyes snapping back to her mother’s. “I’m fine. I’m here for my Physical Evaluation.”

Abby’s lips purse, face becoming slightly pinched as her eyes run over Clarke’s uniform. “I see.”

Clarke stands up straighter, strides towards a cot and sits down, flashing her mother a challenging glare.

Abby lets out a resigned sigh and then moves towards Clarke to begin the examination with a methodological and practiced ease – stiff only in her manner. 

Clarke stares straight ahead, moving only when directed. 

They have been in a tense silence for ten minutes before Abby finally asks, “So. How did your final exam go?” Her voice is taut with disapproval. 

“Please, don’t. It’s too late for you to pretend to care.” Clarke’s voice is hollow. Emotionless. 

“Of course I care, Clarke,” She has the gall to sound hurt. “I’m your mother. I only want what’s best for you.”

The same old tired mantra. “You don’t know what’s best for me.”

“It’s not to late to pull out, Clarke. To continue your internship here.” Her mother continues as if she didn’t hear her, eyes alight with the possibility of Clarke falling in line. 

Clarke’s fingers curl around the cot, digging into the metal frame. “I don’t want to pull out. I don’t want to be a doctor.” _I don’t want to be like you._

“Clarke, please. Be reasonable. The Guard isn’t where you belong.” Her mother tries to catch her gaze. “I only want what’s best for you,” she repeats. “Everything I do, I do out of love, Clarke. Please.” Abby’s hand settles on Clarke’s knee with a gentle squeeze.

Clarke smacks the hand away, shoving off the cot and onto her feet.

“Getting my father floated was not what was best for me. Where was your love then? Where was your love when you turned in your husband and got your daughter locked in the skybox? Was a year in solitary really what was best for me?” Clarke shouts into her mother’s face. Her own face is burning and she can feel the tears welling in her eyes. “Everything you did was for you,” Clarke spits. “How’s the campaign going, Chancellor?”

Abby’s hands move to cover her mouth as her eyes flick around the room to all of the frozen faces watching.

Clarke can see the embarrassment in her eyes.

That only makes Clarke more furious. “Everything is about image with you!” Clarke screeches. “The only reason you want me to be a doctor is to make you look better. Like an amazing mother. An amazing role model. Someone to follow. But I am not your puppet. I’m your daughter!” Her chest is heaving, harsh pants escaping her snarled mouth. She lashes out, kicking the tray next to her mother, sending medical tools flying across the floor.

Abby lets out a choked noise and takes a step back, eyes – the same colour and shape as Clarke’s – wide. 

Clarke runs a hand over her face and takes a deep breath. “I’ll come back for my physical when Jackson is available,” she forces out and then strides for the door. Her vision is clouded with tears and the image of her father blue and cold in space.

Something hard slams into her and Clarke crashes to the ground. She blinks furiously to clear her eyes only to see the familiar, smug face of Bellamy Fucking Blake. Fantastic. 

She launches herself to her feet and pushes past him, checking him hard in the shoulder.

“Griffin!” Blake’s deep voice reverberates off the steel walls.

She ignores him, picking up her pace, only one thing in her mind. Escape. Escape. Escape. Her fingers twitch for a pencil, a crayon, her father. 

“If you don’t stop right now, Cadet, you can forget the Guard.”

Clarke freezes, heart thundering in her chest and her eyes slip shut for a moment before she turns on her heel to face him. “Lieutenant,” Clarke says flatly. 

Blake marches towards her and grabs her elbow. “Come with me.” He steers her into an empty classroom and forces her into a seat so that he can lean over her, muscled arms caging her in. He’s so close that she can see each individual freckle scattered across his cheekbones. Odd to have freckles when you’ve never had the sun on your face. 

“What was that, Griffin?” his voice is low, dangerous. 

“What was what?” Clarke refuses to meet his gaze, instead locking her eyes on the door over his shoulder.

“I was called to medical to break up an altercation, and I find you throwing a tantrum.“ 

Clarke bites down on the inside of her cheek. Anger still swirls in her veins and sits heavy on her tongue like syrup. She knows if she opens her mouth she’ll regret what comes spilling out. 

“Answer me, Cadet,” he demands.

“My mother and I had a disagreement. I lost my temper. It won’t happen again.” Clarke works to keep her voice even. 

“You’re damn right it won’t. A Guard is meant to keep the peace, not cause a scene because mommy withdrew the silver spoon,” he growls.

Clarke’s eyes snap to his and she shoots to her feet, hands clenched, as she leans towards him over the table. “Don’t you dare.”

His eyes widen in surprise for a moment before a smirk begins to flirt at the corner of his mouth. “Hit too close to home, Princess?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she snarls. 

“What’s there to know besides the fact that you’re a spoiled brat who has had to work for nothing. A brat who was spared execution for treason when others are floated for much less. There are people on this ship that have real problems. No one cares about your mommy issues. Keep your personal life behind closed doors like the rest of us.” His words slice through her, cutting to the quick. She can see dark satisfaction swirling in his eyes.

“Fuck you.”

***

Clarke spends the rest of the week with dread swirling in the pit of her stomach. She blew it. She knows she did. There’s no way Blake will pass her now. Her knuckles are red and sore from smashing her fists into the metal walls of her room. She refused to let Jackson treat them when she had returned to Medical for her evaluation, wanting to make herself suffer. 

Her holopad lets out a chime and the plate in Clarke’s lap smashes to the ground with her flinch. She stares at the offending device, fingers trembling as she fights the urge to grab it. She wants to be sick.

Blake failed her. He must have. There is no way he’d let her pass after the way she’d turned her back and stormed off, rolling on a storm of anger and grief and regret. 

She takes a deep breath and reaches for it, teeth buried in her bottom lip. She rests her thumb against the screen and the holopad blinks to life. With a harsh breath she taps on the waiting com. Clarke stops reading after the first word, eyes filling with tears.

_“Congratulations.”_


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second installment is finally here. Sorry it took so long, I'm working on two other projects for Uni as well.
> 
> Enjoy and please comment or kudos <3

She races from her room to Alpha station, heart pounding, and bangs on room A-53, so hard that the cold, unforgiving steel will probably leave a bruise.

A muffled “Coming,” stretches a grin across her face, and when Wells opens the door she throws herself at him, arms tight around her neck, crying, “I passed. I passed.”

Wells stumbles back into his quarters, kicking the door closed with his foot, and then he lifts her in the air and spins her around.

Clarke lets out a breathless laugh, pulling her head back to see his proud grin. “I knew you would. You’re dad’d be so proud.”

A happy sob escapes from her chest and she pulls him tight again. A sharp pang of relief goes through her at the reminder that after everything she still has Wells.

Not a day goes by where she doesn’t regret the hatred that she’d stoked for him at first. The misplaced blame she’d needed to pretend that she hadn’t lost both parents. 

Wells is the only person on this ship worthy of the air her father had died for.

She pulls away, grin still pulling at her cheeks, and wipes at the tears with an embarrassed laugh. “So, what’s new with you?” 

“Same old. The kids are as restless as ever. I’d do just as much good talking to the herbs in Farm station.”

“Please, they adore you.” She gives his shoulder a playful shove and settles on his worn grey couch. Her right hand fiddles with the strap of her watch, and Wells watches her, fond, as he sits beside her.

“Where have you been assigned?”

She nibbles at her bottom lip. “I’ll find out tomorrow when I report for duty.”

Clarke’s first choice assignment is the Skybox. Having spent the worst year of her life in one of those cells, she knows the damage the system causes, and she would not leave others to suffer as she did. As her father did.

She knows not everyone in the skybox is wrongly imprisoned. She is not that naïve. But those kids are what the system made them. Desperate, hungry, cold. Neglected. Equality isn’t equity, and the kids in those cells know that best. 

“You’ll make a difference no matter where you are.” Wells hand on hers is just as warm as his eyes.

“I’ll try.”

***

Clarke spends an extra five minutes trying to get her hair perfectly smooth. With a deep breath she runs her hands down her uniform, watch blinking with artificial light. She hopes Wells was right, that her father would be proud.

She checks the time, and, not wanting Blake to have an excuse to reprimand her, she rushes to Command. But he’s already there, arms crossed, hip cocked, eyebrow raised. 

“Lieutenant.” She snaps a slightly sarcastic salute.

“Officer.” His eyes flick to the digital clock just as it ticks to 7am Earth Time. 

Clarke suppresses a grin.

He pulls out his holopad, pressing his thumb against the screen. “You’ve been assigned to Lockup—”

Clarke knows better than to look excited at this.

He looks at her for a moment, eyes flat, jaw tight. “And your first shift isn’t going to be easy, Princess.”

Something tightens in her stomach as the giddiness she’d been riding since last night fizzles into the nothingness between the rocks and dust of stars. 

She’s had shifts before, of course, but only on patrol. Cadets never see any action unless they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. For Clarke this had only happened once, when an eleven-year-old girl had lost everything. 

"Come with me." His shoulders are tense, back straight, steps measured, as she follows him through Alpha, past Farm, down to Mecha. 

Clarke doesn’t miss the way the temperature steadily drops the further they stray from the centre of the ark. Certain shortages are common in the labour stations. This, according to the council, is due to the fact that the core of the ark must maintain a strict temperature, in order to prevent engine failure. 

Interesting then, Clarke thinks, that the engineers and mechanics are stationed so far from the core.

Wary eyes follow them as they make their way through chilled corridors. Blake keeps his head forward, chin up, hand at the holster resting at his hip.

The Prison is the furthest station from the core. Why waste energy on expendable citizens? Less than a third of those locked away will ever see anything more than the air lock they'll be projected out of. 

The energy Blake is emitting is colder than the clanging walls of the Ark. 

The base of Clarke's spine is tingling, stomach watery.

He ignores the guards on duty as they enter the skybox. 

Clarke attempts a smile. Her lips twitch with failure. Goosebumps line her arms as she follows him to cell P - 546. 

He presses his thumb to the scanner left of the door and the large bolt clunks open, the sound echoing through the cavern of cells. 

"Prisoner five-four-six, please stand and face the wall."

"What's going on?" A young man with chin length greasy hair, rasps.

"Prisoner five-four-six, please stand and face the wall with your hands up."

"Why don't you tell me why you're here, slick." The man doesn't move from beside his cot, rigid, teeth bared, eyes crazed. 

Blake's baton crackles to life. 

The young man flinches.

"Turn and face the wall." He raises his arm, baton snapping. 

"What do you want?" the man snarls, but he turns on his heels arms out.

"Officer Griffin, cuffs please." Clarke reaches for the plastic cuffs at her belt, and steps toward the man, swallowing hard. She reaches for each of his arms, coaxing them behind his back and locks the cuffs into place.

As she works, Blake begins in a flat voice, "Prisoner five-four-six, a week from today you reached majority. As such, the council deliberated your case." He pauses and Clarke looks over her shoulder to see his face, cold and blank. Harsh. "Per this review you have been deemed a threat to the amity of the Ark. In accordance with penal code one, because all crimes are capital crimes, you have been sentenced to death."

"No!" The man yells, and before he's twisted all the way round, Clarke's baton is out and hissing. She is empty, training and muscle memory taking over as she presses the baton into his gut when he lunges at her. 

Prisoner 546 – he is only the prisoner now – crumples to the ground with a roar that reverberates in the small space, assaulting Clarke over, and over. 

Blake is at her side in a flash, hoisting the man's limp body. 

Clarke reaches out, auto-pilot still in control, supporting the prisoners left side, and they begin to half-walk, half-drag, him from the room and through Lockup. 

Eyes peer out at them from the small windows in the thick cell windows, as Prisoner 546 continues to yell and struggle – though markedly weaker. 

Two more guards fall into step behind them as they move to the edge of the Prison station.

Clarke's heart is thudding, the sound of her own breaths harsh in her ears, as she retraces the steps that she'd once run like everything depended on it. Her grip is a vice on the prisoner – she's unsure who is holding up who – when Marcus Kane and her mother standing in front of an airlock comes into view. 

The prisoner's knees give out in the last five metres. Clarke can't bring herself to look at his face as she releases him at the threshold of the airlock and steps to the side as Blake moves to the other.

Her mother begins to speak.

"John Murphy. For your crime of setting an officer's quarters alight, you have been deemed unstable and a risk to life on the Ark. Do you have any last words?"

"Fuck you," he slurrs. "FUCK YOU." He spits at her mothers feet.

The officer beside Blake presses his finger into the pad next to the air lock and the doors slide open.

Clarke and Blake nudge Prisoner 546 – _JohnMurphyJohnMurphyJohnMurphy_ – inside and the doors close with a pained breath, sealing with a finality that is all too familiar. 

She wonders if the seal is faulty, if some space has seeped in because all she can hear is a swollen silence as her mothers mouth continues to move, as her head inclines and the guard presses down and Prisoner 546 is no more.

Blinking hard, Clarke shakes her head and begins towards anywhere but here.

Her mother takes a step towards her, palms up. "Clarke—"

"Don't." She stalks out. Seeing nothing as she makes her way to command. 

Blake follows her. "Griffin," he growls.

 _"What?"_ she snaps, spinning on her heel, arms spread wide. "What could you possibly have to say to me right now?" She wonders if her devastation is written on her face. If he can see her reliving her fathers death in her eyes. 

"We've all lost someone, Griffin. Pull yourself together."

She gets right into his face, venom pouring from her lips. "What kind of monster must you be, that you can send a man to his death and feel nothing?"

The icy indifference in his eyes dissolves as his deep brown eyes rage fire. His jaw is tight, but she's never seen his face this open, seen him show this much emotion. Didn't know he was capable of it. "We all have demons."

"And some of us become them." Her palm is itching and she clenches her fist.

A heavy hand drops on her shoulder. "Blake. Griffin. Cool it."

Captain Miller's face is thunder. But there is something like sympathy in the depths of his eyes. 

Blake shrugs from Miller's grip, eyes shuttering, expression smoothing. He shoulders past her.

Miller watches him go, and then shifts his gaze to her. "Clarke..." Miller squeezes her shoulder.

She steps out of his grip. "Apologies, Captain."

"Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" His mouth pulls down on one side.

Her head jerks in a nod. She turns down the corridor and with each step something deflates inside her. 

On her way back, Clarke stops at the Viewing station and stares out into endless nothingness, the dark side of the moon grinning at her. 

"In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again." Her voice cracks as tears roll down her face in a gentle tumble.

***

Wells finds her an hour later, curled up on the floor of her quarters. Salt caked in her hair, her skin, her clothes, the rug.

He pulls her into his arms and lets her sob. 

***

Bellamy is tired. 

He’s tired of endless corridors. Of the Alpha-bastards and the hypocrisy of “no special treatment”. Of the empty chair where his mother once sat. Of his sister’s pained, lonely face. 

He’s tired of shackling his neighbours for the crime of not being born on Alpha station, for the crime of an illness caused by the heating shortages that rations cannot cure. For the crime of crippling loss.

“Rough day?” Octavia’s voice is all gravel and comfort. She sits on their threadbare sofa, stitching a hole in his shirt made by an eleven-year-old girl when she’d attacked him and resisted arrest as her parent’s belongings had been stripped from her quarters for redistribution. 

He still hears her screams in his sleep. Some times they’re his mother’s – though when she’d been floated for offering sexual favours in exchange for extra rations and information on guard rotations she had stepped into that airlock like a queen going to her coronation – but most often they’re Octavia’s.

“Bellamy?”

He breaks from his reverie. “What?”

The corner of Octavia’s mouth pulls down and she stands from the sofa, putting down her needlework, to draw him into an embrace. 

His arms wrap around her tight and drops his head on her shoulder. "John Murphy was floated today."

"Oh, Bell." She pulls back to look in his face. "It's not your fault."  
He nods, looks to the clock. “Raven will be here soon.”

"Bell—"

"I'm going to have a shower."

He walks into the room that used to be his mother's and shuts the door behind him before stripping out of his uniform and climbing into the tiny cubicle they call a bathroom. 

The frigid water streams down his body. He lifts his hand to work the gel from his hair.

_What kind of monster must you be, that you can send a man to his death and feel nothing?_

His hands scrub over his face.

 _Murphy's body trembling against him._

Monster.

A knock on the bathroom door.

 _The spread of darkness at his groin. His fist against the glass. Mouth contorted as he screamed Bellamy's name._

"Coming."

Monster.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry this took so long! The last two weeks of Uni kicked my butt. I'm done for the year now, though, so expect my updates to be much more regular. 
> 
> This chapter has more of Bellamy and Clarke fighting, because I like it when they yell at each other. #SorryNotSorry. Plot will happen next chapter, I promise. 
> 
> Please enjoy, comment, kudos and share <3

"How quickly can we make this happen, Raven?" Bellamy tugs a faded navy t-shirt over his head and runs a hand through his wet, curling hair. 

"Nice to see you, too, Blake." Raven Reyes is sprawled across his mottled couch like she owns the thing, characteristic cocky grin on her lips, glint in her dark eyes.

Octavia sits next to her, Raven's legs in her lap. It's imposable to pry her away from Raven whenever she visits. 

Bellamy gives Raven a steady, unimpressed look. "John Murphy was floated today."

Raven's grin falters. "Fuck," she breathes. 

He moves to sit across from her, at the steel table and chair where his mother taught him to sew. 

Bellamy had met Raven while working the black market in his early teens, both starving, rations not enough for the hungry mouths at home. She'd never told him, but he knew her mother was taking more than her share. And he'd never told her, but she knew he was hiding something in room FAC - 783.

She'd been there for him when his mother was floated. And he had done the same when Finn was arrested, and then floated a few months later. It wasn't long after that they had begun to plot, and that he'd risked everything and told her about Octavia. 

"So, I'll ask you again. How quickly can we make this happen? Kids are being floated Every. Damn. Day." His gaze flicks to Octavia, who watches him with concern, and the screaming body ejected into space and drifting in his mind isn't Murphy, it's her. He scrubs a hand over his forehead. 

Raven shifts, taking her legs from Octavia's lap to plant them on the floor. She leans forward, elbows on her knees, hands under her chin. "I know I’m brilliant Bellamy, but creating this kind of glitch in the system isn't easy."

"That's not what I asked you." He glares between his fingers.

"I'm still working on creating the virus. It takes time. Especially when they get suspicious if someone's holo is offline for too long. But I'm close. Give me another week to perfect it. Then it should take two weeks for them to notice the slow decline in the ventilation system."

Anxiety gnaws at his gut as his eyes flick back to Octavia. 

She gives him a hopeful smile.

Three weeks. 

*** 

When Clarke arrives at command the next day, it's David Miller, not Blake, who is waiting for her.

"Captain Miller." She salutes. "I was told to report—" 

"Clarke. I wanted to speak with you." He waves a hand. 

"What can I do for you, sir?" She relaxes, legs apart, arms clasped behind her back.

He studies her. "I wanted to talk about what happened yesterday."

Stomach clenching, she swallows hard. "Sir, I want to apologise. My behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional." She can still taste yesterdays tears in the back of her throat. 

His gaze is heavy disappointment. "You're right, it was."

She nods and resists the urge to bite the inside of her cheek. She hopes he hasn't noticed the dark circles under her eyes. 

He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she wonders who she's speaking to. Her father's friend, or her Captain. "Though I understand, if you cannot keep your emotions under control, I will reassign you, despite your preferences." 

Clarke stares forward, watching the flickering CTV monitors and seeing nothing. 

In her peripheral he gives her a sad smile. "You're a very capable officer, Clarke. You've been given a second chance. Don't throw it away."

_“Clarke, please. Be reasonable. The Guard isn’t where you belong.”_

Anger churns in her chest. "All due respect, sir. But I don't need to be coddled. I can handle Lockup." _JohnMurphyJohnMurphyJohnMurphy_.

"I hope that's true." He gives her shoulder another pat before dropping his hand. 

Clarke's jaw clenches, but she just gives another nod. 

_We've all lost someone, Griffin. Pull yourself together._

"And I expect you to apologise to Lieutenant Blake."

_JohnMurphyJohnMurphyJohnMurphy_. She tries to see his face, to shout another silent apology, but the only face she sees is her father's. 

She swallows back a scream. "Yes, sir."

"Today, Clarke."

***

Bellamy hates days off. 

He hates watching Octavia, sitting on that couch, caged in the same four walls for the last seventeen years. 

Spending time with her used to be the best part of his life. But it had become nothing more than a reminder. A fresh wave of guilt and anxiety as he watched the youthful vigor fade from her eyes with every passing month.

Three more weeks.

The new hope warm in her cheeks is almost worse.

What if Raven can't pull it off? What if all this ends in is three more ejected into nothingness?

_In accordance with penal code one, because all crimes are capital crimes, you have been sentenced to death._ Murphy. His mother. Murphy. His mother.

Bile corrodes his throat and her presses his palms into his eyes.

_What kind of monster must you be, that you can send a man to his death and feel nothing?_

A resounding knock on the wall has his heart pounding as he rolls off his small, lumpy mattress, and crosses Octavia in the door way. She gives him a sad smile as she shuts the door behind her.

Bellamy runs a hand through his hair with a deep breath as he opens the door.

He freezes.

"Lieutenant. I'm sorry for the intrusion." Clarke Griffin's ice blue eyes are a raging storm. Her jaw set, chin high. Proud Athena. 

His hand falls from his hair, arms crossing over his chest. "Griffin. What are you doing here? How do you know where I live?" Surprise gives way to anger churning in his gut. Does she really think she can strut about the Ark and disturb whomever she pleases on a whim?

She takes a long breath through her nostrils. "I wanted to apologise," she says between gritted teeth. 

Bellamy leans against the door frame, one eyebrow raised. "Apologise."

The Princess looks like she'd rather float herself than be here. "Yes," she half hisses. 

"Apologise for what exactly?" He forces nonchalance. 

She looks up for a beat, before meeting his gaze, arms crossed over her chest. "For yesterday. Things got a little out of hand, and—"

_Monster._

He lets out a harsh laugh. " _A little?_ You were completely out of line."

"I—" Her arms drop.

Bellamy has never seen Griffin this... disheveled. Her hair is breaking free from its bun, her uniform creased. Dark circles are under her eyes and the usual sharp, clear –sometimes wild – blue is fogged with something that looks like grief. 

He knows her father was floated. Jake Griffin even seemed like a decent man. But as he'd told her before, they'd all lost someone.

"I always knew you weren’t cut out for the Guard. You're too soft." A ball of vindictive pleasure warms in his chest at stricken look that flashes over her face for a moment before it re-arranges into a familiar fury, burning through the mist in her eyes.

"You have no idea what I can handle," she snarls, fingers curling at her sides. 

"You were looking for a little excitement outside your cushy life, so you got your mummy to pull some strings. She uses your _reformation_ to forward her campaign while you play soldier."

"You don't know _anything_."

"Don't I?"

"I didn't do this for the glamour," she shouts. The words echo through the steel corridors. 

"Oh let me guess, you want to make a difference," he scoffs. 

"I don't know if you realise this, but killing people who disagree or disrupt a regime is _wrong_." This time her voice is low. Violent. 

Pure. Rage. It coats his tongue like acid. 

She continues, "And if you knew anything about history, maybe you would realise that humanity doesn't stand a chance if we keep trying to wipe each other out for power." 

How dare she? 

How dare she think she has felt the crippling inequality. 

How dare she cry revolution when she is standing there, alive. The first to be pardoned of a crime in five years. 

How dare she think she knows loss. What about her could possibly be more valuable than his mother, than his sister, than _John Murphy_? Raven might have hid it, but his death stuck her deep. Another kid abandoned by his mother to drink. 

At least Griffin'd had a warm bed and her own share of rations every day.

She's nothing more than a privileged, idealistic idiot.

"You want to know what's wrong, Princess? There are people on this ship, who will be executed for lesser crimes than you committed."

Griffin looks as if he slapped her. "I know that. And I don't plan to waste the life I was given." Her gaze burns into his. "Enjoy the rest of your day, Lieutenant." She turns on her heel, and storms off. 

It's only now that Bellamy notices the people staring.

He slams the door shut. 

***

Clarke is still seething. And this really isn't the best time.

She had never been allowed out into the "yard". Solitary meant that she couldn't leave her four walls for anything. But being on duty makes her think that maybe she had the better end of the deal. 

Allowing one hundred volatile teenagers in one space for an hour is begging for trouble. And the yard is nothing more than a pen. It's hard enough not to brush shoulders with anyone else. And any kind of contact sets these kids off. 

But she understands their anger, their fear.

A familiar face apart from the crowd draws her attention and her chest tightens. 

Nathan Miller had been a friend of hers growing up. Not as close as Wells, but there had been more than one political hoorah that their parents had dragged them to and shoved them in the corner.

"Oi, Captain." A girl shouts, hip length brown hair swinging. Two people flank her, a guy with thick, dark hair and a girl with mousy brown tresses twisted into braids.

Nathan's head snaps up, but he doesn’t move from his position against the wall, arms crossed, brows furrowed. 

"I hear it's your review this week. Must be a relief, knowing you'll be going home with daddy." She stalks towards him.

Nathan says nothing.

"Have you seen Murphy today?" Her face is tight, pert nose pinched. "Oh, that's right. He got floated. Yesterday."

Still nothing.

She gets right up in his face. "What? Nothing to say you privileged son of a bitch?" She shoves his shoulders.

Nathan wobbles and uncrosses his arms and legs, pushing off the wall to stand straight, hands fisted at his sides. 

"You think you're too good for me? You feel powerful being the only guy living in a room full of dead men walking?"

Clarke is moving, baton out, before her mind has caught up. "Alright. That's enough." Anger still pulsing like adrenaline through her veins. 

"Well look who it is. What are you doing, Princess? Come to take your jester back to court?" She spits at Clarke's feet.

The two behind her sneer, but back away as Clarke raises her baton, switching it on with a snap, jaw clenched. 

Why can't they see that it's not each other they need to blame?

Another guard – Bryan she thinks his name is – grabs the girl's bicep, own baton in hand.

A crowd has started to gather, shouting encouragement, and as Clarke is distracted with scanning the room, the girl lunges.

Pulling from Bryan's grasp she swings, smashing Nathan across the face. 

The hundred delinquents let out a yell. "Get him, Roma!"

Nathan stumbles and Clarke grasps his shoulder.

Three more guards plunge into the crowd, batons out and blazing. 

Bryan presses his into the small of the girl's – Roma's – back. 

She arcs, face contorted. And the rage inside Clarke dissipates as the spot just under her armpit begins to ache with memory.

Bryan takes the opportunity to grab Roma's arms and pull them behind her, to escort her away. 

"Next time, Miller," she snarls over her shoulder as she stumbles along, feral grin on her lips.

Clarke leaves her baton out as a low siren begins to ring. Lockdown in the lockup. 

A swarm of guards fill the yard, herding the prisoners back to their cells.

Keeping her grip on Nathan, she guides him through the room and up the staircase, a clang with every step, as she leads him back. A hollow emptiness inside her. 

She studies his face. She's never seen him without a beanie, and his tight curls have grown back in. Blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth, his eye beginning to bruise. 

His keen dark eyes, so like his father's, flick to hers. "Officer Griffin. I'm sure you mom loves that." He gives her a crooked grin. 

"Couldn't be more thrilled." Her lips twitch, but she knows the almost smile doesn't reach her eyes. 

"It's good to see you, Clarke."

She scans his navy jumpsuit. Prisoner 932. "I wish I could say the same."

He lets out a sad laugh. 

"What did you do, Nathan?" she whispers.

"It doesn't matter." He looks tired, resigned. 

She nods, biting the inside of her cheek. "I guess it doesn't."

They reach his cell and she lets go. The siren continues to sound as they stare. 

"Your review is next week?"

He nods.

"Do you think—"

He shrugs. "I guess we'll see." But Clarke can see the fear in his eyes.

She shakes her head and presses her thumb against the lock pad. Nathan steps into his cell calmly. 

"I'm sorry," she says as the door seals shut. 

He gives her another sad smile as his window panel slams down and the siren stops. The light in every cells goes out. 

The sudden dimness sends a chill down her spine. Hours upon hours of solitary confinement a tingling numbness in her tailbone.

_The Guard isn't where you belong._

Clarke thinks of the hundred kids around her. 

_You feel powerful being the only guy living in a room full of dead men walking?_

Clarke has never found more powerless.

_You’ll make a difference no matter where you are._

She desperately wants Wells to be right. But maybe she's kidding herself. 

_I knew you weren't cut out for the Guard._

How can she make a change if no one is willing to listen? 

_You want to know what's wrong, Princess? There are people on this ship, who will be executed for lesser crimes than you committed._

None of them will ever see her as anything more than a monster.


End file.
